


How to save a life

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [111]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, kastle - Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 06:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16805032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: She kisses his scars





	How to save a life

**Author's Note:**

> These are part of the little bunch that I posted on Tumblr, but failed to post here. Here it is now.

For the first time in a long, long time, Frank found himself defenseless.

There was no excuse. No urgent matter he needed to turn his focus to. No crisis he needed to look at. No reason for him to leave, turn his eyes away from her, get away from her presence and the effects it had on him.

There was nowhere he needed to be but right there.

He sat on her living room floor with her, the one source of light being her open window, drinking wine that he would, on any other day, deem too sweet for his taste, but it was good tonight.

And they were, of course, arguing.

Not seriously, without any heat or resentment, just… Out of habit, maybe.

He had been explaining what had happened after the hotel bombing, she was, for some reason, saying that he needed to stop throwing himself in front of bullets, as if she didn’t know that he would take every last bullet in the world if it meant they would not reach her.

“Bullets don’t even hurt that much anymore”, he joked, setting his wine glass down on the floor, leaning back against the wall. “It’s the bomb shrapnels that sting the most”.

She made a face that was half worried, half amused, and shook her head, looking at him that way that made time stand still, stretched seconds into hours, made him feel something he barely recognized anymore.

With eyes full of tears that startled him, she scooted closet and got a hold of his right wrist, lifting his sleeve, forcing it up, exposing his forearm, bunching the fabric past his elbow, up up until she saw it, the angry patch of badly healed skin, the scar that the piece of metal had left behind, the stitches from David a statement of efficiency, not technique.

He watched as she ran the tip of her fingers over it, big eyes focused on the scar that deep, open wound had left behind.

Frank lifted his left hand to turn her face away from it at the same time she bent towards it.

The feel of her lips over the rough skin was the most pleasant of shocks.

Suddenly, he felt his strength leaving him, as if evaporating at that simple, intimate touch, leaving him vulnerable and pliant, defenseless.

Willing.

She moved her lips from one end of the mark to the other, as if trying to kiss it away, and he almost believed the skin would be unblemished when she lifted her face from his arm.

A tear ran down her cheek and he reached up to wipe it away, moving forward towards her, and then there they were again, so close, alone, silence surrounding them. His forehead against hers and tears caught in her throat.

But, now, they had time.

He touched her face and caught that tear on his thumb. She moved and he moved along with her, searching, surrendering, at once, closing his eyes, feeling her hands on his face and her lips on his temple.

Another scar, the bullet that had not been meant for her, but she didn’t know that yet.

One kiss, two, three, and a sniffle.

“Stop saving my life” whispered in his ear, and he smiled, weaving his hand into her hair, guiding her face back to his, her own hand losing its grip on his head and sliding down, around his neck, draping on his shoulder.

“No”, and the salt of tears on his lips, the beating of his heart pulsing, echoing in the dark apartment, in his mind, his soul, the weight of her over him, a breath.

Absolution.


End file.
